The Chronicles of Narnia: Dark Land
by amichaelschwarz
Summary: Lucy Pevensie, now a writer of children's fiction, finds herself in Headington, Oxford, just thirty miles from the late professor Digory Kirke's estate where she first contacted the fantastical land of Narnia. Here, Lucy's visit with her former nanny, brings back many of her childhood "make-believe" memories along with something else: contact from a very old friend.
1. Chapter 1 An Encounter on High Street

Chapter 1: An Encounter on High Street

Lucy Pevensie knocked on the old oak door of the High Street house in Headington, Oxford. She did not use the knocker, because, she told herself, it was an ancient thing made of iron and weathered by the wind and rain and snow. The truth of the matter was that she did not use the knocker because it was in the shape of a lion with a large ring through its nose.

The door swung open.

"Oh Lucy! So good to see you! My dear, come in, won't you?" The woman wrapped her arms around her and hugged her just as tightly as if Lucy were still a child of nine years.

"Ms. Trudy, it's so good to see you too," said Lucy.

"Oh, let's have a look at you." Ms. Trudy held Lucy at arm's length. "You're so very pretty my dear. I can see your mother in you."

"Oh thank you Ms. Trudy."

"Well," Ms. Trudy said, straitening the neckline of Lucy's summer dress, "I've made some tea, would like you some?"

"Of course!"

"Come, come."

Lucy followed Ms. Trudy into the house, to the kitchen table where a large pot of tea and a whole platter of biscuits was laid out with fresh cream, jam and butter in little dishes off to the side.

"Oh, you shouldn't have!" said Lucy.

"Nonsense dear," said Ms. Trudy. "How often do I get such a distinguished guest in my home?"

"Oh stop it!"

"Oh, but it's the God's honest, dear. You're a famous writer!"

"Famous is a very strong word," said Lucy sitting at the table, letting her former nanny pour her a cup of steaming tea. She could tell by the fruity scent of the steam alone that the tea was of a very fine quality.

"Not when it comes to my Lucy," Ms. Trudy said as she sat down across from her and passed her the cream. "How many books have you out now?"

"Three," said Lucy.

"Are they all the same, little mice adventures?"

"Well, um, mostly. Well, yes. They are mice adventures," said Lucy embarrassed. "But they're unlike any other mice adventures, if that makes sense."

Ms. Trudy giggled. "More than you know. I confess I read the first one and quite enjoyed it dear."

"Oh, did you. That's wonderful. The publisher," Lucy paused to clear her throat, "was very certain that that story wouldn't sell more than a thousand copies. And well, last week it sold a thousand and one," she laughed. "They have to do another print run to fill the last order."

"Oh," said Ms. Trudy. "That is impressive, dear. But you know, mice make very good little adventurers. I loved your book dear, I really did. And what was his name, Mr. Bingo, or something?"

"Bombo," she said, now turning red.

"Oh, yes, Mr. Bombo! Loved him, so imaginative."

"Thank you, Trudy, ah, _Ms._ Trudy."

"Well, it's no surprise, dear. My goodness you had such a mind for make believe when you were a little girl in that big, old musty house."

Lucy recalled the enormous brick and oak wood mansion thirty miles south, in the estate of the now deceased Professor Digory Kirke. She remembered too, the circumstances of their relocation: the German blitzkrieg. Her mother had not survived it.

"Yes," said Lucy. "It was…what we had."

"Oh, dear, there I've gone and upset you."

"No! Ms. Trudy, you haven't. My gosh, if I haven't gotten over it by now, well, I'm a lost cause anyhow. I meant…that house and that dear old professor and well, you, it, well, honestly, it lent itself to make believe as you say."

Ms. Trudy smiled at her across from the table, holding her tea cup gingerly.

"I know that look anywhere," said Lucy. "What are you thinking Ms. Trudy?"

"The wardrobe," she said.

Lucy sighed. "Yes, _The_ wardrobe."

"Dear, you were positively obsessed with it. Well, we could scarcely get you out of it."

"I…I'm so sorry to have put you through such a ringer, Ms. Trudy, I really am. Do you believe me?"

"Oh dear, 'ringer' doesn't even begin to describe it. Oh," she appeared to wilt in her chair, "and the nightmares. Oh, dear girl, you see this gray hair?"

"I'm so sorry."

"What did you call it dear? Nana? Neenia?"

"Narnia."

"Yes! Oh, right! Narnia. You always had to go back into wardrobe to save Narnia. And to get you out again, you would think we were sentencing you to the London Tower! I've never seen another little girl who wanted to sit inside of a bloody wardrobe for hours-days on end."

"Well, it was raining!" Lucy declared.

"Raining, shining, Lucy darling, it didn't matter. You had to visit Mr.…wasn't Bombo, but ah…?"

"Tumnus."

"Yes, oh yes," Ms. Trudy laughed breathily. "Mr. Tumnus, the fawn. Oh, Lucy, you told so many tales with such a vivid imagination and so much detail and, well, the thing of it was," she took a breath, her eyes wide, "if I didn't know better, I would have believed you."

Lucy blinked. She felt her joyful smile fall away from her lips and return with one of anxiety. "Well," she said, looking down at her lap. "I guess it's better that you didn't."

"Why would you say that, dear?"

Lucy didn't look up. She thought of her managing editor's reluctance to print a story that he said was "overly fanciful" and that, in turn, made her think of her brothers Edmund and Peter and the terrible train wreck.

"Well," said Lucy, "you know what they say, that too much make believe hinders a child's ability to cope with everyday life." She couldn't help a small tear taking shape in the very corner of her eye and sliding ever so traitorously down her left cheek.

"Oh, Lucy, darling. I know it's been hard, but I don't believe that hubbub and I know for certain that Mr. Bombo would never put up with such nonsense, either!"

Lucy laughed despite herself and quickly wiped away the tear. "Right," she said.

"When did you stop believing in it?" Ms. Trudy asked, cheerfully.

"It?"

"Narnia, dear."

"Oh," Lucy said, looking about the room, nearly having forgotten what they'd been talking about. "Um, oh, I don't know. I'm not really sure at all." She shook her head. "I'm sorry. Will you excuse me?"

"Oh, yes, dear. The loo is the second door to the right."

"Thank you Ms. Trudy, thank you."

Lucy walked carefully down the hallway to the loo. Once inside she fumbled with the lock and clutched her chest, hyperventilating. She was sweating terribly and her heart was beating frantically. One part of her mind told her that it might very well beat so fast it would burst. But she knew better. She concentrated on her breathing, deep inhales, relaxed exhales. She had to clear her mind. Couldn't think of anything, not her book, her family, her career, and not, for God's sakes, Narnia.

It would pass. It always did.

Her heart began slowing to a restful beat. She leaned back against the door and held out a hand. She watched it tremor slightly. But she was relieved, the attack had passed. She laughed to herself. "All that because of Narnia? Oh, Lucy Pevensie, you have got to get your imagination under control."

It was what she told herself more times than she could count since as long as she could remember. How any one faculty could be such a gift at some times and such a curse at others was a mystery to behold.

"Lucy, honey," called Ms. Trudy. "Are you quite all right in there?"

"Oh, yes. Ms. Trudy, I'm just…um, I'm freshening up."

"Okay, dear. I was concerned. Take your time."

Lucy listened as Ms. Trudy's steps receded down the hallway. She dabbed her forehead with cold water and in the mirror told herself it was just a shadow and that she was just fine now, and with that resolved she returned to the kitchen.

Ms. Trudy was reading from a leather bound book that Lucy did not recognize. "Ah," Lucy said apologetically. "I think I'm going to go out."

"Are you okay, dear?"

"I am," she confirmed, trying her best to smile triumphantly. "But I need to take a walk," she said. "All this business with my book and the publisher has taken more of a toll on my nerves than I had thought. I'm so sorry. Give me an hour, maybe two, yeah?"

"Oh, dear. Don't be apologizing for success. I, of all people, know how stressful it can be to try and please everyone. Oh, you know, when you children came to The Kilns, the professor's estate, I really thought, 'oh no, here's the end to the peaceful life as we know it.' But you know, you children, brought such wonder to that house and that old man, I would do it over and over again just to see the joy on old Digory's face when you told him all those tall tales. And Peter and Edmund, God rest their souls, would be so happy with their baby sister if they could just see you now. So, my dear, you take as much time as you need. I'll be here when you return." She rose and gathered Lucy into her arms. "I love you."

It was all Lucy could do not to cry.

Outside the heat of summer had been replaced with a chilly undercurrent so that Lucy wished she had brought an overcoat. "An overcoat in summer?" she asked herself aloud. "How ridiculous."

On her way into town she found the most delightful shop of curiosities and stepped inside.

It smelled of spice and teas and sugar and was at once charming, not that she particularly needed anymore tea and sweets, of course. The man behind the counter smiled at her as she perused his collection of odds and ends and things stacked one atop another in a delightful dishabille. Here was a writer's haven, if ever she had seen one.

Just as she was certain she would calm her nerves with the aid of all this antiquity something most disconcerting happened.

From behind, the piece appeared to be a very large cut of lacquered wood, but on the other side it was anything but. Carved and painted and utterly glorious was the very large image of a lion.

Once again Lucy's heart began its little tap dance and she was terrified that she might have another fainting spell right here in this shop, but to her utter amazement, the lion spoke to her.

"Lucy, do not be afraid," it said.

Lucy swallowed, looked over her shoulder both ways and when she was quite certain no one was looking or listening said, "Aslan?"

"Why do you deny me, Lucy?"

"Aslan, I d-don't. Well, Ms. Trudy doesn't understand these things-oh my, what am I doing talking to a picture?" She spun on her heel and walked straight for the door, but as she passed the counter, her eye caught the shop keeper.

Had she quite noticed the man's hair before? So frizzy about his face? And those eyes, had they been so fierce? "Lucy," he said in the same deep baritone that seemed to bellow up from the bottom of his chest. It was as though the voice had switched from the wood carved picture to the shop keepers mouth. "You denied me twice already, will you do it again?"

"Oh!" she gasped, reached the door and shoved, flinging her body outside where the temperature had dropped from "cool" to "cold." As she ran through the deserted street a sharp wind whistled up seemingly from nowhere.

Clutching her elbows she ran back the way she'd come toward Ms. Trudy's house.

Lightning flashed, followed by a violent percussion of crashing symbols far up in the heavens. Then rain pelted everything, drenching the street and shops and Lucy in seconds. No matter, she would just run through it and get back to the house on High Street where it was safe and warm and…

An enormous bough with all of its branches fell hard to the earth. Lucy never saw it coming. It crashed all around her. Her vision blurred, the splintering of wood was all she heard.

And then she was falling. She grasped for something to hold onto and caught leaves, but just as she grabbed them they turned to needles. She let go, smelling evergreen, falling into the open air, down, into the icy cold of fluffy snow.


	2. Chapter 2 What She Found There

Chapter Two: What She Found There

Snow; icy, thick and white. Lucy sat up shivering in her little summer dress, not at all appropriate for the middle of winter. And what a winter it was.

She gasped. All around her, in every direction one could imagine lay only one color save for a few black dots punctuating the landscape where the ubiquitous drifts would allow it. _Stumps_, she thought. _Those black dots are stumps._

"And where in the world…am I?" Her eye caught on something else then. A reminder of a different time altogether. There, a few yards off, lay a shallows in the snow, a place where drifts either could not or would not form. And standing in that shallows, nobly as though it would not admit defeat to the weather, stood a very familiar lamp post.

"Oh my," she said. "Really?" She was not at all certain that she was not dreaming. Oh, she had had such dreams before, certainly, and usually knew the difference between fantasy and reality. Usually. However, in this situation there was nothing whatsoever dreamy about the landscape or otherwise unreal about her predicament. Her brain told her true: she was awake.

Lucy, quite beside herself now, managed to get to her feet, and shivering though she was, dusted the snow off of her dress and walked over to the post in steps like someone who is trying very hard not to get wet. It was a hopeless affair she quickly discovered once her poor foot fell through the thin crust of ice and into the layers downy snow below.

"Darn it! I'll catch my death out here!" she said aloud to no one and, now decided, trudged through it.

She was relieved to, at last, stand beneath the lamppost because, though the ground was frozen solid, here the snow simply had not gathered. She gazed up and was filled with a terrible sense of sadness, for this lamp post was not as she remembered it.

It was unlit.

The glass of the lamp was smudged and sooty with a yellow singe where Lucy guessed the wick had finally burnt itself out. "Oh. Mr. Tumnus, where have you gone?" It was a terrible question and Lucy feared the worst.

This spot, this lamp was more than just an old relic. It was the place where she had come to believe in her little girl's fantasies. What did it say now that it should be extinguished?

She inhaled sharply at the memories that now flooded her mind and in one profound moment understood the significance.

Narnia had been destroyed.

Everything. Which would include this lamp post, yet here it stood, even if it had fallen from its former glory.

Oh yes, she remembered it quite clearly now standing before this object which had been the start of all her adventures. She had been called back then too, called back by the Great Aslan and she had witnessed His…well, destruction of the world.

_And then what, Lucy Pevensie? What did you do then, hmmm?_ "Oh, bother," she said, looking down at her poor frozen feet. She sighed. "If it is true, then why did I ever leave? Shouldn't I still be living in the wonderful Real Narnia?" She couldn't even remember what the Real Narnia looked like. If it was like the Old Narnia or something else entirely. It meant something so stupidly simple that she almost couldn't bear to think it: none of this was ever real.

And in this dismal state of mind she sat down quite reluctantly on the cold, cold ground and waited for her little nightmare to end, because certainly it would.

"Only the foolish fancy of a very foolish girl," she said and closed her eyes to further prove to herself that this world of snow and familiar lamp posts was indeed not real at all, despite being sorely cold and sitting with her back to the lamp post whose existence she denied.

It was not the call of her sweet former nanny, nor her owlish editor, but the clomping of hoof beats that she heard through the howling wind. She refused to open her eyes until the very last moment when it was rather impossible to keep them shut. And when she did, she screamed.

Huge hands clad in thick moleskin grabbed around her arms, stood her up and turned her around. She peered, panicked, into a suede cowl and saw inside the muslin of a turban wrapped above a swarthy face.

She gasped.

"Daughter of Eve, eh?" he said.

Lucy could not speak; such was her distress. The Calormene soldier squeezed her wrists together and pulled her to his horse. "You'll need this, just to make it to the fortress," he barked and shoved a heap of fabric into her hands. The wind gusted up at that moment and blew the soldier's cowl back, baring his face to her for the first time. His beard was not very long at all.

"You're young!" she declared without thinking and the glare that earned her made her bite her tongue.

She let the tightly rolled bundle unfurl and was relieved to see a cloak much like the Colromene's, despite it being redolent of spices she could not place. Quickly she pulled it on and gathered its thick folds around her shoulders.

The figure pointed to his horse and with a grin as devilish as any Lucy had ever seen said, "You'll go willingly or unwillingly, but you'll go! Which will it be?"

"How dare you?" she said, despite herself. "Do you know who I am? I am Queen Lucy."And then because she had almost forgotten, added, "The Valiant."

The Calormene soldier eyed her dubiously and shook his head. "You can't be serious."

"I am!" she said. "Very."

He laughed and drew a deep breath. "Oh there, now Queenie, it's not that I don't believe ya, but there's been a few changes since you been crowned, capiche?"

Then the vile young man did something that Lucy, while not expecting it, couldn't say surprised her. He pulled a very sharp and very curved knife from his belt. It winked in the gray light of winter. "Up," he commanded, "Or down." He ran the knife under his throat in a mock gesture to indicate slitting it. "Your choice, princess."

She did not believe he would do it, but nonetheless, looked around to survey her options. Knife or no knife, she had none. She stepped forward and without the help of the soldier mounted the beast. He climbed on in front of her and slapped the reins. The great warhorse broke into an instant gallop and she had no choice at all but to wrap her arms around the young Tarkaan's waist.

His beast plowed through the deep snow in the manner of a locomotive

The landscape was a haze of white and gray and, it seemed, in a state of perpetual blizzard.

"How did you find me?" she shouted above the wind.

"I'm on watch!" he called before kicking his horse in the flanks and powering onward.

"And where are you taking me?" she called.

"Don't worry, its better than freezing to death!"

The rest of the journey was spent in silence and she vowed right then and there that somehow, someway she would get free of this detestable Tarkaan.

Though quite truthfully, she had no idea how. Running away could only be classified as willful suicide, but capture? She had heard some awful tales of Calormene cruelty, but to that end, she had also heard stories of their civility. They were an old and well established race, which, she knew from research as an adult, their customs would be rigidly set. That could be a boon for a prisoner. Especially in time of war where such customs were likely to be stringently adhered to. But was this a time of war?

Hadn't Narnia been destroyed?

Soon after, previously veiled by the endless curtain of snow, shapes appeared without warning. Huge, bulky silhouettes of frightening proportion. They vaulted into the sky. Spires and domes of a Calormene castle topped with red flags that snapped in the wind. The horse galloped at breakneck speed toward a draw bridge that opened like the yawn of some great and terrible dragon. Lucy tensed, but it was not because of the keep that threatened to swallow her up. It was for the another shape entirely apart from the cyclopean architecture.

It was also made of black stone, but this stone gleamed like polished glass as though a contingent of a hundred soldiers were assigned to buff it hourly. It glowered down at her as the horse strode underneath it and she was certain that the horse galloped as fast as it did so that it might evade the terrible gaze of that sculpture.

She shivered and for the first time not from cold.

There above her, presiding over the grounds as certainly as though it lived, stood an enormous statue with a vulture's head and four taloned arms. Below, at the base, in script as large as a Shetland pony, it read: _Tash the Inexorable, the Irresistible._

"Where are we?" she called over the young man's shoulder, her voice quavering.

She could hear his laugh even over the wind. "It has been awhile, eh princess?" he shouted back.

"Answer my question!" she demanded, as the horse trampled violently over the wooden bridge.

"This is Castle Tashbaan and-"

"What land!" she all but screamed it.

He laughed, this time louder and longer, before shouting, "We call it Dark Land!"


End file.
